Recent miscues on death row, including a horrific botched execution in Florida, have put the question of whether the death penalty is constitutional back on the nation’s legal agenda.
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush suspended further executions pending an investigation of Angel Nieves Diaz’s death. Diaz, a convicted murderer, required two separate sets of injections and 34 minutes to die last Wednesday. The three-drug cocktail normally kills within 15 minutes – supposedly painlessly.
Separately, last Friday, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel ruled that, even in normal circumstances, the lethal injection procedure as applied in California violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The judge found state executioners are poorly trained, work in dim, cramped quarters and often fail to properly mix the lethal, three-drug cocktail.
California has suspended capital punishment since Fogel halted the execution of convicted rapist and murderer Michael Morales in February, citing evidence that the last six men executed at San Quentin prison might have been conscious and breathing when lethal drugs were administered and thus might have felt unnecessary pain.
Fogel’s latest ruling left open the possibility that the process of executing prisoners can be fixed to conform with constitutional standards, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has directed prison officials to review procedures and develop a way to ensure executed prisoners don’t suffer needlessly.
Inevitably, death-penalty opponents seized upon the latest incidents to renew their arguments against capital punishment in general. They may have momentum on their side, because the death penalty is on the wane in America.
Diaz was the 53rd and last person to be executed in the U.S. this year, down from 60 in 2005 and 98 in 1999. A recent Gallup poll found a slight majority of citizens favoring life without parole over execution for our worst criminals.
The U.S. Supreme Court declared the execution of the mentally retarded unconstitutional in 2002, and in 2005 banned execution of persons who were under the age of 18 when they committed their crimes.
The Denver Post has long opposed capital punishment, but the crude methods in place in California, Florida and, we suspect, the 35 other states using lethal injection must give even death-penalty supporters qualms.
Instead of merely tinkering with what Justice John Paul Stevens called “the machinery of death,” America should join the 88 nations that have formally abolished capital punishment or the 29 others who have abandoned the death penalty in practice.
